The subject application relates to finishers in a printing system. While the systems and methods described herein relate to providing finisher resources to meet high-speed marking system demands, it will be appreciated that the described techniques may find application in other printing systems, other xerographic applications, and/or other finishing systems.
A conventional approach to increasing printing throughput is to increase the speed of the printer. However, increasing printer speed typically results in greater stress on the individual components of the printer. Another approach is to employ several marking engines, which can be vertically and/or horizontally stacked, within a printing platform. Multiple marking engine systems provide relatively higher overall output by parallel printing processes, wherein portions of the same document are printed on multiple printers or concurrently processing multiple print jobs. For example, an electronic print job that includes color and monochrome portions may be partitioned and distributed across color and monochrome printers. Print media substrate (e.g., paper, velum, plastic . . . ) is fed from a common or different source to the printers. Printed substrate is conveyed to a finisher where the media associated with a single print job are assembled. Such systems are commonly referred to as “tandem engine” printers, “parallel” printers, or “cluster printing” printers.
As the speeds of the marking system increase, it is desirable that the finishing device(s) keep pace with the marking system. It is becoming increasingly difficult for the finishing device(s) to match marking system speed while providing a large number of features. Existing high speed finishers tend to be limited in their capabilities and/or become very expensive in order to meet marking system speed requirements.
Accordingly, there is an unmet need for systems and/or methods that facilitate overcoming the aforementioned deficiencies.